Five Ways Capitalism Is Ripping Off the American People

There are more than five ways, of course. There are numerous product ripoffs, as described in a recent article by Lynn Stuart Parramore, who identified textbooks and bottled water and print cartridges as a few of the ways Americans are duped into paying a lot more than reason and regulation would dictate.

And there are many industry-specific ripoffs, most notably in health care. We have the most expensive health care system in the world, and yet we're falling behind other developed countries in numerous health measures.

Here are five more industry-specific ripoffs of the American people:

1. The Retail Industry (Walmart): Building Owner Fortunes With Public Tax Money

A study in Wisconsin by the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce determined that a typical Walmart store costs taxpayers over $1.7 million per year, or about $5,815 per employee. A 2004 study in California put the cost per employee at $2,103.

A quadrillion is a thousand trillion. A return to the financiers of just .1 percent (a tenth of a penny from every dollar) would generate $1 trillion, the total Adjusted Gross Income for half of Americans.

Almost two-thirds of the private prison contracts analyzed by In the Public Interest "included occupancy guarantees in the form of quotas or required payments for empty prison cells (a 'low-crime tax')."

In the 1990s the FCC deregulated phone and cable and Internet companies, with the intention of promoting competition. But just a few companies -- Verizon and AT&T and Comcast and Time Warner -- have divided up the market, reducing competition as they remain poorly regulated.

So now South Korea has Internet access speeds 200 times faster than us at half the cost. Same thing in Hong Kong. And in Europe unlimited texting and voice from Verizon costs about a third of U.S. prices.

It gets worse, according to David Cay Johnston, who reports that regulations have been written that allow large corporations to add unsubstantiated charges to cell phones, cable TV, internet service providers and others that can cost American families over $2,000 per year.

5. The Drug Industry: Buy American...but Tax Us Like We're Foreigners

Bernie Sanders notes that pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly and Pfizer have lobbied to keep Americans from buying cheaper prescription drugs from Canada and Europe, but then they their shift drug patents and profits to offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, a writer for progressive publications, and the founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org).